Government responses

42. Since our appointment in July 2005, we have received the majority of Government responses within the established two month deadline. We were consulted in advance over any delays. On occasion there has been a tendency, as observed in our previous Annual Reports, for Government Responses to restate existing policy. In these cases, we have held oral follow-up evidence sessions with Ministers to clarify the Government's Response to criticisms or recommendations made within the Report, for example on the classification of illegal drugs. The Government's Response to this Report was extremely clear in its acceptance or rejection of individual recommendations.[89] Each recommendation was noted with a response: "accept", "accept in principle", "reject" or "reject in principle". However, although this helped to clarify the Government's position, rejection or acceptance in principle occasionally meant that the Government had misinterpreted our arguments or had not responded directly to the point being made.

43. Two of our Reports elicited responses from organisations involved in the inquiries and referred to within the Reports. Our Report on the EU Physical Agents (Electromagnetic Fields) Directive commented upon the advice given to the Government by Health Protection Agency (HPA).[90] The HPA produced a response that sought to clarify its role. It noted that "The Agency will study the criticisms made by the Committee carefully and ensure that any lessons are learnt from this issue".[91] As mentioned in paragraph 32, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs produced a response to our Report on the classification of illegal drugs and we invited the Chairman of the ACMD to discuss the response with us in a follow-up evidence session. This evidence session on 22 November 2006 highlighted several aspects of the Report that had been misconstrued by the ACMD and the Chairman of the ACMD acknowledged that he had misunderstood aspects of the Report.[92]

Relations with OSI and Government departments

44. In general, our relations with the OSI have been good during 2005 and 2006. We have been kept informed of forthcoming announcements and have been supplied with the information on performance that we need in order to carry out our work. The OSI has, for the most part, been punctual in providing responses to our questions prior to, and after, evidence sessions. Requests for witnesses to attend oral evidence sessions have generally been met. The Chairman has held regular informal meetings with the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir David King. On 1 December 2005, we held a meeting with several Department Chief Scientific Advisers. After the reorganisation of the OSI, Sir David King invited us to visit the Department. We found our visit on 21 November 2006 very useful: we spoke informally to staff, developed new contacts and consolidated our good relationship with the Department.

45. Due to the wide-ranging nature of our remit, we work with a variety of different departments. In 2006, we liaised extensively with the Home Office in relation to the scientific advice inquiry case studies on identity card technologies and the classification of illegal drugs. The written evidence initially provided by the Home Office for both inquiries was poor but officials subsequently answered numerous written questions promptly and provided a wide range of supplementary evidence. During the identity cards inquiry, the Committee requested that the Chairman be allowed to see the Identity Cards Programme Risk Register. Although this request was denied by the Minister on the grounds of commercial confidentiality, the Identity and Passport Service subsequently provided a confidential briefing for the Chairman, using extracts from the risk register.

Relationship with the science and engineering community and the public

46. We always seek to engage members of the science and engineering community in the work of the Committee. Following his election in July 2005, our Chairman used the summer recess to visit several organisations interested in the work of the Committee: RCUK, ESRC, PPARC, NERC, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, DTI, the Wellcome Trust, the Royal Society, and the Royal Academy of Engineering. In September 2006, he held meetings with representatives from the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Research Councils, the Royal Society and organisations interested in the recently-announced space policy inquiry. Members of the Committee have met representatives from various organisations such as the G15 Group of Engineering Institutions, the Nuffield Curriculum Centre, the Chemical Industries Association and the Biosciences Federation. On 28 November 2006, we met the British-born astronaut, Piers Sellers and his NASA crew as part of our space policy inquiry. These informal meetings are complemented by more formal partnerships that our Members take part in, such as those organised between scientists and MPs by Industry and Parliament Trust and the Royal Society.

47. We communicate our work to the policy community in various ways. We regularly contribute an update on our work to the journal, Science in Parliament. The Chairman gives numerous speeches about our work and our Reports. For example, he spoke to policymakers about the role of the Committee in scrutinising Government at PolicyNet at the Royal Academy of Engineering on 6 July 2006. He discussed the Report on scientific advice, risk and evidence based policy making at the Foundation for Science and Technology on 15 November 2006 and at the Food Standards Agency on 6 December 2006. Committee Members also often take part in panel discussions to talk about our work. On 28 February 2006, four Committee Members took part in a panel discussion at the Royal Society of Chemistry's Voice of the Future day for young chemists. During our visit to Australia, three Members of the Committee took part in a panel discussion at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research about science policy issues ranging from stem cell research to nuclear power. This panel discussion was open to the public and was broadcast by ABC radio.

48. Many of our inquiries draw contributions from people that would otherwise have no direct contact with Parliament. Our inquiry into space policy in the UK, for example, has drawn evidence from individuals interested in the possibilities of human space flight, from individual researchers, and from students studying space medicine. We are fully aware that giving evidence before a select committee is a daunting prospect for members of the public and that the inquiry process can seem impenetrable to those who have no previous experience of it. For this reason we have developed some written guidance on the work of the Committee and the inquiry process more generally that is available on our website. In order to engage a broader range of the public, we plan to hold oral evidence sessions outside Westminster during 2007. We shall take oral evidence at the National Space Centre in Leicester for the space policy inquiry and have already contacted local schools in the area for their views on space science within the school curriculum.

49. We have also taken as many opportunities as possible to engage with politicians and scientists internationally. In July 2006, the Chairman and another Member attended the 11th Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS) in Lausanne. This conference provided them with an invaluable opportunity to listen to presentations on doping in sport and to discuss our inquiry with leading scientists in the field. During our visit to Australia, we were able to discuss our carbon capture and storage Report with the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Science and Innovation who were undertaking a Report into geosequestration. In Washington, we discussed science policy issues, such as the politicisation of science, the science budget and the administration of NASA, with the House of Representatives Committee on Science. The Committee has been represented by Members at several international meetings on climate change including the joint meeting of MEPs and national Parliamentarians in Brussels in January 2006 organised by the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy of the European Parliament, and the Fourth Asia-Europe Parliamentary Partnership Meeting in Helsinki in May 2006.

Working methods and innovation

50. In October 2005, we held a Committee awayday. We reviewed our working practices and as a result we agreed a method for choosing inquiries, to discuss the effectiveness of evidence sessions at the subsequent private meeting and to follow up reports published by the previous Committee. We also agreed to experiment with seminars at the start of inquiries. These have ranged from informal private seminars with experts in the field for carbon capture and storage, and space policy to a public seminar with experts and sportspeople in relation to our inquiry into human enhancement technologies in sport. The latter significantly raised the profile of the inquiry and stimulated much interest in this relatively new area of policy.

51. In January 2006, we decided to use case studies to approach the subject of scientific advice, risk and evidence based policy making. As well as conducting a broad over-arching inquiry that considered the scientific advisory structures and approaches to risk across Government, we focused on three policy areas. We found that this approach allowed us to undertake detailed scrutiny that supported our more general findings across Government. In an inquiry concerned with the evidence base, we were particularly keen to ensure that our work was underpinned by thorough research. We contracted RAND Europe, a not-for-profit policy research consultancy, to provide an independent review of the evidence base for developing policy on the classification of illegal drugs. RAND Europe produced a report that gave an impartial assessment of the relationship between UK policy on drug classification and the international, publicly-available evidence base to underpin it.[93] The RAND Report was published on 1 March 2006 in order to coincide with the first evidence session and it informed both our inquiry and our subsequent Report.

52. During 2006, we have taken part in a pilot project across the select committees that sought witness feedback. At the end of each evidence session we gave our witnesses a feedback form on which they could comment upon the approach we had taken, the effectiveness of our questions and their expectations for the session. All select committees are now being encouraged to undertake witness feedback.

90   HC (2005-06) 1030 Back

91   HPA Press Statement, 'Scientific Advice on the EU Physical Agents Directive: Response to Science and Technology Committee Report', 29 June 2006. Back

92   Oral evidence taken before the Committee on 22 November 2006, HC 65-i, Q 103. Back

93   Ruth Levitt, Edward Nason, Michael Hallsworth, The evidence base for the classification of drugs, Technical Report, RAND Europe, March 2006, http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR362/  Back